Hemispheric securityDeath threats and disease drive more Venezuelans to flee
There are currently some 3.7 million refugees and migrants from Venezuela worldwide, the vast majority in Latin America and the Caribbean. Given the worsening political, economic, human rights and humanitarian situation in Venezuela, the UN Refugee Agency, now considers that the majority of those fleeing the country are in need of international refugee protection.
José and Yurmi hurriedly gathered up their seven-month-old baby, packed some clothes and walked the few kilometres that separate Venezuela from Colombia. José, a doctor who volunteered with local communities near the Venezuelan city of Barquisimeto, had just been warned of a threat to his life.
“The person that was paid to kill me was one of my closest patients. He said that he would have accepted the US$790 he was offered to take my life if he hadn’t been so grateful to me for treating his relatives,” José explains. “It is a lot of money. Anyone would have taken that offer.”
José and Yurmi’s search for safety brought them to a shelter in Bogotá, Colombia – supported by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency - where they are spending a few nights until they can regularise their situation, pay rent and settle in safety.
There are currently some 3.7 million refugees and migrants from Venezuela worldwide, the vast majority in Latin America and the Caribbean. Given the worsening political, economic, human rights and humanitarian situation in Venezuela, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, now considers that the majority of those fleeing the country are in need of international refugee protection.
Given the deteriorating circumstances, UNHCR today issued updated guidance, calling on countries to allow Venezuelans access to their territory and highlighting the critical importance of ensuring access to asylum procedures for those forced to run for their lives. The note also recommends countries not to deport or forcibly return Venezuelans as their lives may be put at risk.
The guidance note includes recommendations on how to handle cases such as that of Juan Carlos, a 28-year-old Venezuelan who had worked for three years in the communications department of a state-owned business in Venezuela. He never imagined that an interview with the local press revealing irregularities at the office where he worked could place him in grave danger.
When the interview was published he suffered intimidation at work. “I was humiliated,” he recalls. “They treated me as if I was worthless and they threatened to kill me, forcing me to resign.”
